1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display processing apparatus with which a portable terminal apparatus such as a smartphone or a tablet computer terminal is connectable via wireless communications, an image forming apparatus such as a multi-function peripheral (MFP), i.e., a multifunctional digital machine, including the display processing apparatus; a display processing system of a remote screen and a display processing method of a remote screen.
2. Description of the Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
In recent years, users can store digital documents on their portable terminal apparatuses such as smartphones and tablet computer terminals, and even view and edit the stored documents anytime and anywhere they like. After editing a document by the portable terminal apparatus, users can transmit the document to an image processing apparatus such as a MFP to have it printed out by or stored on the image processing apparatus. Users also can create a file consisting of image data, for example, by scanning a physical paper document with a scanner of the image processing apparatus, transmit it to their portable information apparatuses to edit the file thereby.
However, users are bothered by operation different screens from the image processing apparatus and the portable information apparatus, back and forth separately, which is quite troublesome.
To solve this problem, there has only recently been proposed a cooperative system including an image processing apparatus and a portable terminal apparatus, which allows a user to access functions of the image processing apparatus from the portable terminal apparatus, by displaying an operation screen of the image processing apparatus to operate the image processing apparatus, as a remote screen on a display portion of the portable terminal apparatus. In such a cooperative system, a portable terminal apparatus displays operation screens of an image processing apparatus as remote screens on its display portion on the basis of screen data received from the image processing apparatus.
That is, information which indicates a user operation is transmitted from a portable terminal to an image processing apparatus, and the image processing apparatus generates next screen data on the basis of received information to transmit generated screen data to the portable terminal. The portable terminal displays updated remote screen based on received screen data.
The touch panel is provided on the portable terminal. A user can scale an image by performing a gesture operation such as a pinch-in operation or a pinch-out operation on a display screen. In other words, the user can enlarge the image of the remote screen displayed on a display of the portable terminal by user's enlarged operation.
The following problem may occur, if an operation performed by the user on the remote screen when the image of the remote screen is displayed in an enlarged state on the portable terminal apparatus is an operation of displaying a popup portion composed of another window.
Specifically, if the user performs an operation of displaying a popup portion on a remote screen when the image of the remote screen is displayed in an enlarged state on the portable terminal apparatus, operation information is transferred from the portable terminal apparatus to the image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus generates next screen data including the popup portion corresponding to the operation information.
However, the arrangement position of the popup portion in the screen is set to a position suitable for display on a display panel of the image forming apparatus. Therefore, if a next screen is enlarged and displayed in the display portion while keeping the position of the popup portion, a part or the entirety of the popup portion may be out of the screen. In this case, the user of the portable terminal apparatus needs to locate the popup portion on the screen by scrolling the screen or dragging the popup portion, which is a cumbersome operation.
In addition, if the entirety of the popup portion is out of the display area, the user may not visually recognize even the presence of the popup portion.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-039469 discloses a display apparatus configured such that an image to be operated is not hidden even if an operation setting button overlaps the image to be operated.
Further, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-244189 discloses a technology of optimally arranging a plurality of windows on one screen without overlapping.
Furthermore, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2004-005582 discloses a technology of controlling not to transfer, to a slave computer, image information in an area which is not displayed on a master computer, if the display sizes of the master computer and the slave computer are different from each other.
However, the technologies disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2006-039469, No. 2010-244189, and No. 2004-005582 failed to solve the aforementioned problem in the case where a user operation of displaying a popup portion is performed in a state that an image of a remote screen is displayed in an enlarged state on the portable terminal apparatus.
In view of the above, an object of the invention is to provide a display processing apparatus and an image forming apparatus that enable to definitely display a popup portion in a display area of a next screen to be displayed in a display portion of a portable terminal apparatus when a user operation of displaying the popup portion is performed in a state that an image of a remote screen is displayed in an enlarged state on the portable terminal apparatus. Another object of the invention is to provide a display processing system of a remote screen and a display processing method of a remote screen.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.